Barb Howe: The reckless policies of a populist president

By Barb Howe Special to The Sun

Wednesday

Jul 10, 2019 at 2:00 AMJul 11, 2019 at 10:20 PM

In 1828 gold was discovered in the Appalachian mountains on lands belonging to the Cherokee Indians. The following year, populist President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act seizing Native lands and ordering the tribes to relocate further west.

The Cherokees sued the U.S. government and the Supreme Court ruled, in a couple of cases relevant to the matter, that the Cherokee were a “domestic dependent nation” and as such were entitled to sovereignty. Jackson’s Indian Removal Act was struck down.

The Supreme Court said no to a sitting president, who responded by ignoring the court’s ruling and doing it anyway. What happened next is known as the Trail of Tears, the forced relocation marches in which approximately 4,000 people died.

The Supreme Court recently ruled against the Trump administration regarding whether it could include a question about a person’s citizenship status on the 2020 census. Ostensibly the government lawyers argued they needed this information to “support the Voting Rights Act,” but the real motive surfaced in the form of documents from a Republican redistricting strategist showing how the reduced accuracy would do just the opposite — it would suppress the population count in ways that would specifically benefit Republicans.

The census is mandated by the U.S. Constitution and it requires that every person living in the country be counted every 10 years for the purposes of determining representation in Congress and the allocation of state resources. It specifically does not require counting only those with citizenship status.

After government lawyers told the contemporary court they would abide by the ruling and not include the question on the census form, the Tweeter-in-Chief tweeted that they would do no such thing. They don’t know how to legally justify it yet (they’ve given the lawyers some time to work on thinking up some creative new arguments) but they know some way, somehow they have to get that question on the census.

It’s become a top priority of the administration. Trump is even threatening to use an executive order to do it.

Why is this so important? Because the future of GOP rule depends upon it. The policies of the overwhelmingly white and aging Republican Party are out of sync with a youthful nation that is becoming more multicultural and progressive.

The only way the Republicans can stay in power is by controlling the redistricting process (through gerrymandering) and outright voter suppression. A wildly inaccurate census count that undercounts likely Democratic voters is key to advancing their goal to seize and prolong power over the coming decade, democracy be damned.

Even if he weren’t provoking a constitutional crisis by ignoring the Supreme Court, the actions of this president regarding immigrants are beyond the pale and bring much shame upon the country. Separating children from their families and detaining them in cages, some as young as four months old, even when they have family members living here in the United States is unnecessarily cruel and makes political pawns of children.

Refugees fleeing violence and instability in Central America are being locked up like criminals. This is unnecessary. Asking for asylum is not a crime. And contrary to popular conception, according to the Justice Department’s own figures around 60-75% do show up for their court hearings and that number increases even more when they have legal representation and don’t have to navigate a foreign country’s legal system on their own.

Trump’s immigration policy is to use cruelty and punishment to deter refugees from trying to seek asylum in this country. This is the reasoning behind his administration’s use of psychological terror tactics on immigrant communities by threatening raids. It flies in the face of everything this country once stood for.

This is not just politics as usual. These are the lives of the next generation of great Americans who will one day look back at us and ask, what did we do to stand up for immigrants when Trump targeted them?

The Supreme Court may not be able to do anything if a president decides to ignore the rule of law in order to enact a cruel and inhumane policy toward a vulnerable segment of society. But the people of this country don’t have to do the same.

We should not continue to allow a humanitarian tragedy to take place in our country because of the reckless, dangerous and cruel policies of a populist president.

This piece was written by Barb Howe with assistance from other volunteers from Indivisible Gainesville.

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